Snowfall
by Natsu chan
Summary: How did our red headed Hitokiri and his wife get back down the mountain? Poor Kenshin as if the mountain wasn't bad enough. The fic that started out as a one shot and just grew and we aren't quite finished yet. Chapter 7 is up with an epilogue to follow.
1. Snowfall

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of RK I am only borrowing them.

Authors' notes: Needless to say Australia doesn't get a lot of snow, in fact where I live it never snows. Because of this and the fact that it's an 8 hour round trip to the nearest snow in winter, I've only seen the white stuff twice in my life.

I've grilled a lot of my Northern Hemisphere friends about snow so the following is based on second hand knowledge. I hope it's reasonably accurate. Please read and review.

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It was snowing, a cascade of white flakes that slowly covered his dark blue kimono, but he was dreaming of pale pink cherry blossoms that danced in the air. Above, the dark winter bare branches, bowed down beneath a cloak of white. He had fallen against the trunk of one of these trees, his katana, its blade shining in the snow still clenched in his fist. The cherry blossom danced and twirled slowly down to the bloody snow. The branches groaned and a lump of snow landed only inches from his face. He woke with a start and found himself laying face down in the cold, wet, snow.

He put his hand up to his head, and closed his eyes to the swirling snow and sky. Some how rather distantly the scent of white plum blossom danced around his nostrils. The scent clashed with the cool winter air, a delicate reminder of spring that made no real sense. He lay on his back, his eyes closed, merely breathing, his mind full of confusion, his body half numb, half pained, cooled by the snow. He opened his eyes with difficulty, one was very sore, and a white haze danced in front of his eyes. He blinked repeatedly, and dragged the long strangling hair out of his face. He felt strangely unbalanced as if something terrible had just happened, something that he had momentarily forgotten.

The faint tantalizing fragrance triggered some hazy memory. He pushed himself up in to a siting position, one hand still clenched around the hilt of his katana, the other cradling his head. The world rocked. His eyes widened, where the snow had been compacted by his body there were dark stains of red, and pink. His clothing, his clean grey hakama was covered in blood. Shuddering a little, his eyes travelled up his arms. Deep red spots and splashes decorated his arms and sleeves. Slowly, almost fearfully he lifted his violet eyes.

A foot away lay a woman, her long black hair fanned out over the snow. The sleeves of her pale, almost white kimono, bunched up above her elbows leaving her forearms exposed to the cold. Cold and disorientated Kenshin scrambled towards her. Anxiety made his movements devoid of their usual grace.

"Tomoe, Tomoe." He muttered as he reached one bloody hand out to her. As his fingers brushed again her bare, white arms, a rapid secession of memories assaulted him. He closed his eyes and lifted her head on to his lap as he knelt in the deep snow. He had killed his wife. Although he could not recall the exact moment, he was sure. He stroked her hair with trembling blood stained fingers. '_If I had been carrying a sword that night, would you have?'_ Her voice, the words of a long ago conversation filtered through his mind. An age passed as he sat in the snow, his wife's head in his lap, his heart and mind filling with and irreparable misery.

Abruptly he staggered to his feet on numb, freezing legs, shaking himself free of the seductive call of sleep. To fall asleep here, now, in the steadily falling snow was to sleep forever. He slipped his katana in his obi below the empty saya that should have held his wakizashi and lifted the slowly stiffening body of his wife. He gazed up at the dark bare lattice work of branches above. The world it seemed was crashing in on him. Clearly, what he had done was wrong. _'But why? Why did she step between us sacrificing her own life in order to conserve mine?'_ He could remember that much now. Coming down the mountain, he lacked the aggressive stubborn resolve he had had coming up. All that sustained him was the desire to take his wife back to the small house they'd shared since late summer.

Tree roots lurking under the snow, conspired to trip him and some how it all became muddled in his mind. Tomoe, the mountain, the men who'd attacked him… and more confusing still the morning. What had happened then? Mercifully, for the moment he couldn't remember. Blood loss and general exhaustion clouded his mind and his awareness. It was as if he'd been given a jigsaw with half the pieces missing. There was something more he was certain, something important.

His feet in their straw sandals padded silently on the snow. Tomoe's hair brushed against his leg with each faltering step. Coming up the mountain had been difficult enough but travelling down was harder still. His heart and mind were now filled with exhausted confusion, not with burning stubbornness. The sky visible thought the dark branches dressed in snowy white, was dark and heavy. His breath frosted on the air and as his blood ran, his skin began to prickle with the icy cold.

Down, down, down. Kenshin stumbled and wavered to the left and right. The snow falling silently on to snow, until finally far below he could see the outline of their house. His feet were soaked and numb; the wet had slowly crept up his hakama leaving his legs draped in cold wet clinging fabric. His blue kimono had cemented it's self to his back with a mixture of blood and snow, but he did not know this.

He mumbled to Tomoe and in effect himself, in a manner that was not in the least like his normal self. His shoulders sagged with exhaustion and defeat. He staggered more with each step, before finally stumbling over the roots of a tree and falling against its trunk. He clung to his wife with frozen fingers. Leaning against the trunk, he was finally aware of his own heavy breathing and the pain. A bright burning pain from the wounds across his back, the ones on each shoulder and the dull throbbing ache from inside his ears. He pulled his wife's body closely against his own, in life she like everyone else had been taller than him, now some how she seemed far smaller, with her kimono torn and soaked in blood.

The snow reached out with its cool silent fingers. He panted, and rested his head against the bark. Slowly his breathing settled to a series of shallow breaths and he closed his eyes. Then slowly, gently as if carried on a breath of warm wind the blossom began to dance.

(2005)


	2. Snowbound

Author's notes: This was meant to be just a single one shot but I had a little voice insisting I write this second piece to finish it off. So here, we are please read and review.

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Shino's sandaled feet left faint tracks like a bird on the snow. He weaved back and forth across the track collecting sticks for his bundle pausing now and then to make slashes and parries with a stick as if it were a sword. He looked up at the smoke grey sky and felt the soft pull of the wind, perfect for kites, if he could convince Yoshi to come with him. Shino made another stab at the air with his stick. Maybe between them they could convince the medicine seller to come too. He shifted the bundle of twigs in his arms, if he hurried, they could fly the kites before dinner. He ran up the feet of the mountain the bundle of twigs held firmly under his arm. His eyes flicked over the ground, kindling his Kaasan had insisted not the huge wet branches he usually brought home.

His feet skimmed, silently across the snow, and then he saw it. Above a huge mound of snow that had blown against a tree. An enormous curving branch, true it was a branch not a twig or a stick but if he broke it well…then. He grinned and dropped his bundle on a vaguely dry rock before bounding over the snow to the branch. He put his hand out to grasp it, suddenly his foot caught on something and he fell forward into the snow with a soft plop. He sat up and twisted around to look at what had tripped him. It was a piece of deep blue cloth that protruded from the pile of snow. His first thought was that his Kaasan was going too be none too impressed at having him arrive home soaked in snow. The second was that the piece of cloth looked like a kimono sleeve.

A moment later after he'd brushed the snow off his clothes he grasped the piece of cloth and pulled. For several long moments nothing happened then quite suddenly the rest of the cloth and the arm within it slipped free of the snow. The small boy fell backwards, rump first into the snow. He stared at the limp hand hanging out of the kimono sleeve with his mouth hanging open, and his heart drumming a tattoo in his chest. The breeze pulled his short hair away from his face. His first instinct was to run, but vaguely in the back of his mind, he remembered his grandfather telling him that people who fell asleep in the snow died.

He crept forward steeling himself against his fear. His body tingled with fear and trepidation, his heart drummed ever louder in his chest. At the top of the mound, there was a tangle of red hair. The only person he or any of his friends had ever seen with red hair was the medicine seller. The last time Shinto had seen Kenshin was yesterday when the medicine seller had let them persuade him to join their mock sword fight. Shino could remember quite clearly the bemused and rather embarrassed look on the young man's face as he'd held up two sticks and announced himself as being Koudou Isami captain of the Shinsengumi. He scrapped away the snow.

It wasn't deep snow and after a moment, it crumbled revealing the startlingly red hair of the medicine seller. He kept clawing away at the snow until Kenshin's head and shoulders were free of the snow. His skin was very cold, and his red hair hung wetly around his face. The boy hesitated, Kenshin was so very white and cold that for a long moment Shino was certain that he was dead but then he saw Kenshin's chest lift ever so slightly. Relieved he dug away at the snow with renewed optimism.

He dug away the snow frantically, scrapping it away from Kenshin's body with cupped hands. It took a long time for his small hands to clear away the snow and before long they were numb with cold. Here and there, he came upon patches of bright red snow. To his childish mind, it looked as if the setting summer sun had spilt on to the cold winter snow. Finally, his hand sunk into a much larger patch of red that extended some way down into the snow his fingers scrapped at the deep trail of red on Tomoe's kimono for a moment, until he realised what it was. Shino sat staring at the 6 inch expanse of blood soaked kimono in horror the blood slowly draining from his face. Then in a fit of panic and fear, he stood and ran his bundle of kindling forgotten.

Fear drove him on, until he had ceased to notice that he was both wet and cold. The wind stung his face, made his eyes water. The snow had started to melt; his feet slipped and slid leaving dark muddy scraps in their wake. He ran down the path he had crisscrossed quite happily not an hour before. Once he fell, face first in to the snow half winding himself before he rose again and ran on, and always in the back of his mind was the blood soaked kimono. Finally, after what seemed like an age he made his way home nearly falling again in his anxiety to get inside.

Shino found his mother her dark hair in a bun slicing vegetables for the evening meal. She looked up at the sound of his running feet; one look at her son was enough to make her bite back her words about the kindling. He fell to his knees panting his eyes wide and frightened. Words fell from his mouth, like a litter of puppies confined for too long, but they were garbled and incoherent from fear and breathlessness. She stared at him taking in his soaked and muddy clothes and purple hands. She opened her mouth to say that he really should change when he began again this time some how though she understood.

Three figures padded softly through the snow. Two men and a middle aged woman with troubled eyes following the faint bird like tracks of a small boy.

(2005)


	3. Snowdrift

Authors note: Needless to say, I have some strange theories about Hiko, but I don't think our much loved red head is that much different from his master. Just a little more modest….and not much more modest at that. It's mentioned in the manga and the anime that Hiko knew what Kenshin had been up to during the revolution, so we can safely assume he kept tabs on Kenshin one way or another. There's also that grave scene at the end of the Kyoto arc. Keep in mind however that this is just one of numerous possibilities.

Oh and yes, I know I swore to myself blue and blind that Snowfall was a one shot, then a double one shot but I've been foiled again. Part of me hopes this is the last of it because I have other things I'd like to work on, but in the end, I guess that's not up to me. I guess if worse comes to worse I can always gag him can't I?

My thanks to Maigo-chan without her RK manga translations a lot of us would have no access to the manga at all. Please read and review.

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The wind rattled the shoji. It drove a fine dusting of white through the cracks and left a shining veil to melt into the tatami. The cold air tugged at the tall man's black ponytail. The snow fell just short of his back. He paid it no heed. He was too intent on the state of the idiot's wounds to notice something so unimportant. The lamp flicked sending distorted shadows across the walls. In the half light looking down at the boy who'd been his pupil, Hiko Seijurou ceased to question the wisdom of charming his way in. His calloused palm pressed again the young man's forehead. It wasn't too bad, he supposed. A little cold if anything. He sat next to the futon looking nothing like the master swordsman he was. The mask he perpetually wore had slipped. The boy looked every bit as small and vulnerable as he had at ten, though better fed he had to admit. Even though he'd grown, Kenshin was still small and slight. Wiry really and his red hair and fair skin only emphasised it. At this moment, that bright red hair made him look even paler than he already was. As pale and grey as the snow that lay banked up outside. Still, his chest rose and fell in a steady comforting way.

Since that day on the mountain, Hiko had been keeping tabs on Kenshin. He couldn't help himself. He had known that being the master of the Hiten Mitsurugi style meant a life without a family. He hadn't cared really, he'd been too young to realise what he was giving up. Yet Kenshin had some how become more than just a student. That small, thin little boy with his large troubled eyes, who never stopped trying, had left a deep impression on him. Looking down at the deep wounds he couldn't help but feel pity. A pity mixed with no small measure of guilt. If he hadn't taught Kenshin how to wield a sword, he certainly wouldn't have ended up in this predicament. Inwardly he sighed. What Kenshin had needed most was a mother's love and a father's guidance, what he'd got was endless lectures and insults care of the biggest ego in Japan. Hiko closed his eyes. Back then he hadn't realised how hard raising a child was. Any idiot could teach swordsmanship, any idiot could learn which wasn't to say they should. Being a parent, well that was another matter entirely. He remembered the sunset, the warm gold light that spilled over the graveyard. The graveyard Kenshin had made with his own tiny hands. _'But even bandits and slavers are only bodies when they die . . . so I made them graves.'_ Perhaps that was it, that oddly adult voice that had left him feeling so strangely immature.

Beneath his yukata, the deep gouges on Kenshin's back were by far the most serious of his injuries. The tuffs of blue thread and jagged edges showed that his clothing had become imbedded and cemented to his wounds. These kind people had, by removing his clothing, only made the wounds worse. He squeezed out the cloth and rinsed over the deep, torn wounds. Was it was madness that made him come? Or guilt, or something else he couldn't name. It didn't matter so long as Kenshin never knew. Slowly the bowl of water grew darker. Slowly the wounds grew clear. Soon now, he'd need to disappear. He'd need to disappear, but at least Kenshin had a chance, which was more than he could say for the beautiful girl he'd married. He could see the two of them, in his mind, the tall slim girl with a cascade of dark hair, who left the faint fragrance of white plum in her wake. A beautiful girl, with a well bred polite air. Yes, Kenshin had got that much right at least.

Hiko disappeared without a backward glance, leaving a few things for Kenshin's wounds and knowing that for Kenshin the worst was still to come. For now, he slept, but not forever. Soon enough his dream would dissolve into a nightmare.

In the darkness, the cherry blossom danced and sometimes he heard her voice. That longed for voice that drew him ever deeper into the velveteen darkness. In the darkness, it was safe, safe from the agonising truth, safe from a world without her. A world without her dark, rather sad, searching eyes, without her soft polite voice a world in which he was alone once more. Here at least he could still hear her, though she never called him by name. After all, she never had. He thought that it was Hiko perhaps who had last called him Kenshin. In this life, he was Himura, or Battousai or you, rarely anything else.

In this darkness too, he was free from the pain. A physical pain unlike anything he had ever had to endure before. Here in this world of darkness and cherry blossom he was safe. Sometimes through the darkness he could hear a voice, familiar but strangely distant. Hiko he thought, but he sounded so far away and the pull of Tomoe's soft voice was stronger. So he sank ever deeper into the darkness the cherry blossom guiding him on.

Then some how it seemed the cherry blossom became a blizzard. He lost his senses, he merely staggered on. Then in the darkness he found himself knee deep in a river of blood.

Blood seeped from under his bandaged shoulder. Shino's mother regarded him quietly, as she wiped the cold sweat from his face and the blood from his chest, noting that the pallor of his skin wasn't quite so marked, that his hands weren't quite so cold. After seeing his wounds, it seemed impossible that he was still alive at all. This thin, exhausted, scrap of a boy who suddenly looked no older than her own son. He barely looked old enough to be away from his parents, never mind married. Except, that he wasn't, not any more. She sighed and wrung out the cloth. When she had seen them, returning from the village, his beautiful wife always half a step behind him. He had seemed so adult. Seeing him on the mountain half frozen, more dead than alive, she'd suddenly realised how young he was. Just a boy. A small broken child, covered in more blood than she'd ever seen. Her husband had carried him back and laid him down on a futon, his face uncharacteristically grim. They'd gone back for his wife, her father and her husband. Even now, she was packed in a shroud in the snow, until someone came to take charge of the whole tragic mess.

The wound on his face kept oozing. She bathed the bloody residue away and caught his hand gently as it reached out, a reflex response to the pain. Maybe he wasn't going to die after all. When she'd bathed him and seen the depth and severity of his wounds, then she had thought he wouldn't be long in following his wife to that other world. Yet for all that, he was tenacious and strong, and it half frightened her for what would happen to that tenacity when he woke and found himself alone. She smoothed the hair out of his face. He moaned a little calling his wife's name in a hoarse, crackling whisper. The first sound he'd made in four days, her hand paused and her heart filled with pity. _'Poor, poor boy.'_ She stroked his hair and murmured to him, willing him to slip back into the sweet unconsciousness again. Far better for him if he died. Far better than the grief, that awaited him and yet…. She remembered her son and his friends. Brimming over with stories full of references to the quiet young man with the gentle smile.

The soft scuffle of bare feet on the tatami made her glance up. Shino leant against the door frame, his face still a little pale, his eyes still rather wide. He stared past her at Kenshin. Who was, thankfully silent again. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other uncertainly.

"Kaasan, that man's here again."

She glanced down at the small body. This quiet gentle young man, how the village children loved him. She stood up quietly laying the damp cloth to one side. She put her arm around her son squeezing him in a warm side on embrace. Her finger tips rested briefly on his head.

"It'll be alright don't worry."

"But Kaasan."

She tapped his head lightly and walked out the door.

He wasn't a tall man, but quiet. He bowed to her respectfully as he always did and asked about Kenshin in the same polite fashion. She answered as she always did. Trying not to think too much about the two swords, samurai swords that stood propped in the corner of her bedroom. Trying not to remember her husbands words, _'our medicine seller's a swordsman be careful what you say to people'_ lest they show on her face. He had shown her the katana gleaming with use and constant care beneath the fresh blood. The blade covered in a multitude of old nicks and scratches. The balance of it, despite its weight in her unschooled hands, made her shiver. _'And someone' _she remembered her husband's words _'someone tried to kill him'_. The whispers around the village, that the quiet young man with bright red hair was not all he seemed had proven true. But she knew her husband hadn't said anything about what he'd found up on the mountain, not even to her. The man before her had sharp darting eyes that put her on her guard. The rustle of blankets hit her ears and she felt her own eyes slide back to the door of Kenshin's room at the sound.

The blood frightened him, and her voice just got further and further away. He looked around him wildly but all he could see was black and red, darkness and blood. He felt oddly revolted and very alone. The blood covered his hands and dripped down his katana, into a never ending river. He looked around for her, his heart beating rapidly in his chest, his long ponytail flicking about him as red as the blood he stood in. He called her, startled at the strange rustiness and desperation in his voice.

The pain ran through his body like a wave, bearing him up towards consciousness. Towards the light. He was filled with a deep pit of pain that he didn't understand; more than anything, he wanted her. Her voice, her touch, her quiet composed face. Her hands oddly cool against his skin, making his blood race in that odd heating way. At that moment between the reality and the dark, he would have given anything to feel her touch, real and tangible against his skin, even if it meant losing everything. He moaned and his voice as if somehow separate from the rest of him uttered her name in an endless agonised whisper. Then above him, the rough timber beams came into view and his world was pain.

The physical pain which was beyond anything he'd ever felt before, paled away against the icy cold emptiness that filled his insides so completely. With the memory, the awareness her name died on his lips.

He had loved her that much he understood, that strange quiet happiness he'd never felt before. That almost rabid protectiveness, so different from his normal detached self. More than all that was the shattering grief, which left him with an odd sense of understanding. Now he was alone, again. Yet this time it was some how more painful, more frightening, because this time he understood. He'd destroyed it himself. He rolled on to his side and closed his eyes half burying his face under the covers. Something soft twisted in his closed fist. He opened his eyes and peered at the pale blue silk, he held it against his face barely aware of the tears that slipped down his cheeks. _'It's all right. So please, don't cry . . .'_ but how could it be and he whispered her name again and again on his dry cracked lips.

(2005)

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Further notes: My apologies for putting chapter 3 up and pulling it down so rapidly (_and for forgetting tochange the blurb oops!)_Lolo popoki kindly pointed out something that just had to be fixed. I'm still not sure that I've fixed the problem but thank you for pointing it out to me.

Thank you everyone for the wonderful reviews.


	4. Snow cloud

Author's notes: Yep yet another chapter for this fic, I'm starting to wonder where it will end. Each time I think I'm finished I end up writing another chapter, which considering Snowfall started out as a one shot is rather odd. My one shots generally stay just that, but oh well never mind. Not quite sure how well done this is in relation to the earlier chapters so I'd love some constructive input.

This chapter was written for the Meiji tales October challenge. Please read and review.

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Yori trudged beneath the dark, bare, trees, their roots still buried in mounds of snow. With each step her wooden geta cut through the soft snow and down to the frozen road below. The cold, snow-laden air swept beneath her hastily arranged ponytail and up the sleeves of her kimono. Yet only that morning, the air had been warm enough for the deep quilt of snow to soften and thaw. The wind that now bent the interwoven canopy of branches, promised a return of the snowfalls from the week before. Yori paid no heed to these warnings. Her dark brown eyes followed the twisting weaving path of the two boys who ran back and forth across the road ahead of her.

Shino, his black hair sticking up wildly, dashed back and forth. His hands outstretched as he lunged at his best friend. The welfare of the red haired medicine seller lying in their back room, the farthest thing from his mind. Yori however had left the young man only with the greatest of reluctance. It was only the lack of fresh food that had sent her into Otsu dragging the two reluctant boys with her. She hurried, hoping to make it home before the young man awoke. The boys, darting back and forth in amongst the trees soon found themselves left behind. They stared for a moment standing flatfooted and surprised in the road watching the back of Yori's steadily receding brown kimono. The branches above them groaned painfully dumping a load of soggy snow next to them. Shino jumped. He caught Yoshi's eye and grinned guiltily, before tearing up the road after his mother, his feet slipping in the slushy snow with each step.

Yori pulled the woven basket a little closer to her chest, and increased her speed. The ground rose up as they left the village and headed further out into the country. She had no intention of dropping the river fish she'd purchased for dinner on to the slushy ground.

In the warmer weather, the snow had begun to melt but since they had left for Otsu, the sky had steadily darkened. Now the clouds had become a dark rather ominous gunmetal grey. Yori watched as Shino ran past her and swung around a tree, one bare and rather dirty hand gripping the trunk. Pushing off to run back out across the road, he slipped and dived face first into a pile of muddy, dirty snow. Yoshi laughed. Shino spluttered and scowled. Yori sighed, her face breaking into a faint affectionate smile as he scrabbled to his feet and lunged at Yoshi. She really had been landed with a clumsy child for a son. Glancing up at the ominous sky, she chivvied the two boys along.

The wind picked up, it tugged at her sleeves and at the single ribbon in her hair. The silk one, her _only_ silk one that she kept for going into Otsu. Her long black hair fluttered and twirled out sideways and her geta slipped and scraped in the snow.

The wind shook the shoji in its runners. The house groaned, and the small flame in the rice paper lamp shivered uncertainly. Kenshin woke with a start, shaking, his chest searing with heat and pain. His breathing, short and quick as if he'd been running. His tongue dry and clumsy. Agitated he sat up trying to erase the unpleasant after-image of his dream from his mind. The ice cold wind trailed faintly across his skin. Vaguely he wondered, if, now that he was alone again, that he was loosing his grip. The angry groan of the wind interrupted his thoughts as it rattled the shoji vengefully. In another gust the lamp's small dancing flame vanished plunging the room into darkness.

From behind the deep red curtain of his hair he shivered but it was the strange distorted dream that made him tremble. Half from the adrenalin surging in his blood, half from a terrible disquiet and fear. It was as if his mind was firmly pointing out the error of his ways. Kyoto, Tomoe, the blood of each bathing him in a warm, bright, unending river. He blinked and glanced around him, to his relief he was where he expected to be. He scratched at his chest, his eyes roving over the walls. Not in Kyoto, not in the house he had shared with Tomoe, but in his neighbour's home. The room was quiet, only thin chinks of light penetrated the gloom. The faint scent of smoke and burnt herbs hung in the air. There was a vague rather unpleasant thought hovering at the back of his mind that only made his head ache all the more. He snatched his hand away from his chest as the itch erupted in to a sharp pain. His hands came away bloody and greasy. A sharp familiar smell that made him look at his nails all the closer filled his nostrils. It was the familiar scent of the herbs that Hiko had once slapped on all his injuries.

Annoyed with himself, he tried to rise but his legs, weakened by blood loss, exhaustion, exposure and their recent lack of use refused to comply. They buckled throwing him face down on to the tatami. He lay there for a moment amazed at the way his breathing quickened. It hadn't been so long ago that he'd been fit and strong. Strong enough to carry out all the orders that Katsura had concealed in those small ominous black envelopes, yet now he had all the strength of a day old kitten. A soaking wet day old kitten. He was young, proud, and quite infamous in his way and there was something distinctly demoralising and frustrating about being unable to rise. He dragged himself back up on to his knees and gazed around the dark room.

The darkness didn't bother him. Even on the darkest of Kyoto nights, he'd never had trouble navigating. Somewhere in this darkened house or more likely outside it, was Tomoe's body. With the snow and the frozen ground, there was no way they could have buried her. He bowed his head. His breathing was still slightly quicker than it should have been, his arms were covered in goose pimples, and still he was trembling. He should have been preparing her for cremation and saying his last goodbyes not laying here in a neighbour's house shivering like a half drowned kitten. The cold air slipped through the small cracks in the walls and through the tiny gaps where the shoji didn't quite sit flush with the wall and trailed around his bare skin leaving a path of raised hairs in its wake. He closed his eyes and listened, to the soft creaks and groans as the huge timbers that supported the roof settled against each other. The low moan as the wood slowly began to contract again with the dropping temperature.

He kept his eyes closed and quietened his breathing, and attuned his hearing to his surroundings all the while attempting to blot the after-image of the dream from his mind. Time dragged, seconds became minutes that marched on relentlessly. The wind caught the tangled strands of his hair brushing it against his face and neck. Kenshin sat very still, and very silent just as Hiko had taught him. His skin grew cold and his hair finally found its way over his face. Slowly perversely, the image of Tomoe standing there her head tilted slightly to one side pushed its way into his mind. The look of surprise in her eyes as she stared up at him from where she'd tripped in the snow. The feel of her small slim fingers cold from the winter air in his. Kenshin shivered for a moment he opened his eyes and gazed out into space. He looked down at his hands and clenched his fists. The shoji rattled and then softly through the gloom came the faint sound of snow falling lightly to the world below.

He felt the warm patch on his chest slowly expand as the wound bled out into his yukata. Somewhere in the gloom, he heard children's voices and the steady clop of geta shod feet.

Yori rushed up into the house, out of the snow pushing the two boys ahead of her. The flakes swirled down out of the dark sky with so much force that soon the ground would be covered in a fresh layer of snow. She gazed back down the road hoping to catch sight of her husband, but through the shifting curtain of falling snow, it was hard to see anything.

Yori paused, one hand pressed lightly against the shoji a candle in the other. The flame flickered caught by the faint drafts of cold air from the other side of the door. She hesitated a moment longer feeling foolishly uncertain before pushing the shoji open and stepping inside. The room was very dark. The lamp she'd left burning had gone out and left the room cloaked in darkness. She paused on the threshold while her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Her skin prickled as her eyes scanned the room, the tea tray with its now cold tea still sat untouched just inside the door.

She felt oddly nervous as if she was being watched. The timbers above her groaned and her heart fluttered anxiously in her chest. Subconsciously she pressed her hand hard against her breast as if to prevent her heart escaping. Then from the depths of the gloom, she caught sight of the glitter of a pair of eyes staring out at her. The breeze caught her candle and the flame flickered. Yori took an uneasy step back before she recognised the fall of red hair and sharp violet eyes. It was Kenshin's eyes that had glittered with such piercing coldness from the darkness. Her husband's words came back to her, _'our medicine seller's a swordsman'. _He was sitting up, half in the futon half out, in the cold and darkness watching her, apparently innocuous but the cold sparkling glitter of his eyes stayed in her mind.

He blinked a little, the glassiness slowly leaving his gaze and stared up at her. She sighed with relief and stepped towards him.

"Do you have a cloth?" His voice was hoarse and rough from lack of use and his tongue felt dry and clumsy against his teeth.

Yori jumped, her heart still beating a rapid tattoo in her chest. _'How piercing his eyes are!'_ She crouched down and peered at him, her hand still pressed hard to her chest. She looked at him closely drawing the candle in closer. He was trembling and his arms were white and covered in goose bumps. Her eyes trailed worriedly over his arms and up his shoulders. Then widened as she caught sight of the blood on his yukata.

"Oh your chest." She sprang to her feet and rushed from the room the candle still gripped in her fingers. She moved quickly her mind busy, oh how she wished she hadn't washed the linens that morning. _'What can I use? _And_, 'how, how did he reopened that wound?'_ The tall dark man who had come asking after him had stitched it up so neatly. She ran towards her cabinet only to see Shino disappearing around the corner with the very last piece of clean dry linen in the house.

"Shino! I need that!"

Her son paused his hair still standing on end from the wind and stared up at her curiously. Feeling flustered she plucked the square of cream linen from his hands and rushed off for a bowl of water. Leaving Shino staring after her in surprise for the second time that day.

Kenshin remained where he was staring at the open shoji. Belatedly he realised he'd scared the poor woman. He closed his eyes and sighed. His fingers traced over the wound. Someone had stitched it very firmly closed but his rough scratching had torn the stitches through his already fragile skin leaving a row of bloodied intact stitches dangling from the top of the wound. He needed a tanto or a knife, a small one like a silk knife to remove them before he tore the edges of wound still further. He ran his hands though his hair raking it back to where it belonged and noted with some annoyance that his hands still trembled.

The hollow thud of rapidly moving feet came back into his consciousness. Yori appeared her kimono-clad body briefly silhouetted in the doorway. She stepped quietly into the room, a bowl of steaming water, a single square of cream linen, and a jar of wound salve in her arms. She looked brisk and organised but her kind brown eyes were anxious. Kenshin wriggled his dry tongue around his mouth as a prelude to another query but Yori had already gotten up and turned to leave.

"A silk knife…" He croaked out his fingers against the wound across his chest.

"Do you have one?"

Yori looked at him still silhouetted in the open doorway.

"I don't think I own one of those" Her voice was soft and apologetic.

"Gomen, I'll see what I can find." She spared him a faint worried smile and hurried from the room. He closed his eyes that soft tone reminded him strongly of Tomoe. How kind and gentle she'd been. He sighed and drew his cold arms down onto his thighs. _'What will happen now?' _Soon word would get back to Katsura. Then what would happen, for what use was a hitokiri who stood out. Worse, still if he had to go on, as surely he would, what would he do with out Tomoe?

The snow blew against the shoji and in through the gaps. A thin white veil of it settled on the tatami. Kenshin closed his eyes. He could almost see Tomoe standing in a shower of pink cherry blossom, just as she had in his dreams. He still had blood on his hands, and still he found the phantom scent of white plum on the air just as he had in Kyoto. Yet everything had changed and nothing could be erased.

(2005)


	5. Snowstorm

Author's notes: I'll admit this chapter took quite sometime, though most of it was written in the week and a half before Christmas. Unfortunately due to my health and the holiday season…never mind the heat, (I don't know about you but the last thing I want to do in 40C plus weather is type on a computer) it just got pushed aside. Anyway, all that aside here it is. Hopefully my piecemeal writing hasn't affected it too much... I have to say this has been one of the most persistent fics I've ever written every time I think it's finished I end up adding a bit more. I'm thinking there's one more chapter to go before I'm finished but needless to say, we'll see! I hope you enjoy it please read and review.

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The trees shivered, sending pale flurries of snow out across the road with each whisper of wind. Kenshin's breath hung in the air like a dragon's smoky exhale. His eyes flicked nervously over the snow ahead. The breeze rippled the bottom of his neatly mended haori and fingered the end of his ponytail. 

The wind didn't cut to the core with ice laden fingers as it had and the mountain too, had receded beneath its mantel of white. The snow let him pass without attempting to draw him down into its icy embrace. It sparkled, pristine and innocent in the pale winter sunlight, covering the road and draping the trees in white garlands. There were no cold groping hands reaching out to trip him now. He hardly noticed. All his concentration was bent on walking. Walking tall and strong on his cat light feet so that anyone who happened to lurking in the trees might be fooled into thinking that he was back to his old self. But even this was an effort, his leg muscles trembled with each step and the wounds that encompassed his torso stung in silent protest. He stared at the snow ahead driving himself on. His breath came in pants, and his face had grown even paler beneath a thin sheen of sweat. Still for all that, he was cold.

Painfully, achingly cold, colder than he'd ever been. Even with a belly full of hot miso his stomach felt frozen and hollow. A bright fragile ice that held a dangerous, raging torrent of freezing cold emotion in check, glazed his insides. It filled him, consumed him and yet some how left him feeling completely empty. He averted his gaze from the people walking beside him and almost desperately from the stretcher they carried. He ran his eyes along the line of tree trunks that marched up the mountainside, anything so he didn't have to think. Anything so his memory wouldn't conjure up the sound of her voice or image of her face. He concentrated on the way ahead, shutting out the voice inside that told him he'd become the monster that everyone in Kyoto had whispered about. Hitokiri Battousai the demon of Kyoto. Now they really could call him a monster. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to see her, the front of her pale kimono bright with blood. His feet slipped faintly in the snow forcing his eyes open. The breeze blew his haori flat against the back of his hakama and sent his hair spiralling over his left shoulder. Mercifully blocking out the view of Tomoe's still, shrouded body.

Yori watched the young man carefully. The medicine seller's bright red hair obscured his face, but she could tell from his rounded shoulders and from the way his feet sunk deeper and deeper into the snow that it was taking all his strength to keep going. How stubborn he was. He wanted to go home. Though his legs still trembled as he stood and any effort made his breathing rapid and shallow. She could hardly stop him, he was as insistent as he was polite. He'd thanked them quietly and very politely, but underneath it, you could feel his iron hard resolve. Watching him, she couldn't help feeling a little anxious. He walked so straight and strong, the two swords slung all too casually at his hip. It was a sham, she knew. His body was still hurt and weak, his emotions still raw and fragile but he was stubborn. It was stubbornness and pride that made him refuse their assistance. So, that even now as they walked beside him bearing his wife on a hastily made stretcher, it was as if he walked completely alone.

She closed her eyes briefly as the image of that thin broken child covered in blood clouded her mind. All that blood, she could hardly believe that he was still alive never mind walking under his own steam. When she'd washed his clothes, the water had turned red. He didn't look like a child anymore, there was something almost frantic flickering dangerously in the depths of those violet blue eyes. It wasn't quite as dangerously bright as it had been. Now it seemed hard and bright, glittering dangerously out of the depths of his eyes. When he'd first been hurt it had been there too but some how it had only aroused her empathy. She understood. She'd buried four children of her own and the pain of it never quite dissolved beyond a deep ache. Yet now his eyes frightened her.

At Kenshin's quiet insistence, her husband had taken him out in the still morning. He'd carefully lifted the cloth covering Tomoe, packaging it up like a sack so the snow wouldn't fall on her broken body. The young woman's face had some how looked serene though she had taken on the hue and coolness of frozen marble. Kenshin unable to hide the tremors coursing though his body had stood in the snow staring at the still figure laying swathed in linen in a huge mound of snow. He'd extended one hand almost touching the young woman's face before snatching it back. The blood still covered her kimono. The path of his katana announced itself in a long bloody gash. He'd staggered back a step or two, his eyes filling with a frantic almost wild dismay. Yuri remembered the way he'd stared at her, his eyes wide, almost wild and dangerously, dangerously bright. She'd carefully and gently caught hold of his arm, fear catching in her throat and lead him back under the over hanging roof. She had paused only to cast her husband a rather pointed glance. Somehow, while she'd made the miso he'd composed and dressed himself. He was clearly restless though even then.

Yuri felt Shino brush against her. He shuffled along beside her his eyes on the small thin man, who had suddenly stopped being their medicine seller. Even to his innocent gaze, the swords that hung at Kenshin's hip, his light, sweeping gait, and the steely glitter in his eyes spoke of a swordsman not a medicine seller. Yet, for all that, his pale face shiny from perspiration and his shoulders bowed from misery only served to make him look more pitiful than dangerous. It was as if he was trying desperately to keep their kind sympathy at bay with his aloofness. Frightening as those glittering violet eyes were, Yuri could still see the broken child hiding behind them, if she looked. His red hair and dark haori only made him stand out stark and remote against the snow, as if he were trying with all his strength to draw the tattered remnants of his pride around him. She sighed, and pulled the bundle in her arms more firmly against her chest. The cool breeze brushed against her face and sent the sleeves of her kimono into a gentle dance. She glanced down at her son and wondered at the world.

Shino watched Kenshin intently. Watching the way his bright red hair clung to his drooping shoulders. He matched his mother's stride, aware of her sleeves swinging softly in time with her step and of her eyes as they followed Kenshin's passage along the road. Kenshin hesitated a little in his stride dragging his eyes from the path to the way ahead, his feet sunk still deeper into the snow. There was something helpless and weary in his gaze. Shino brushed the hair out of his face and in a moment had left his mother's side. He ran around behind his father and grandfather careful not to send a shower of snow up in his wake. He averted his gaze from the carefully shrouded figure suspended between them and fell into step beside Kenshin, who simply plodded on as if he wasn't there.

After a moment or two Shino became distinctly aware of Kenshin's breathing. It was shallow and rapid as if he'd been running and his pupils were wide making his eyes look large and dark as well as glassy. Kenshin seemed old suddenly, the man who'd played with Shino and his friends, pretending to be Koudou Isami had disappeared.

Kenshin had moved so lightly then with an effortless grace that none of the boys could match. His deep violet blue eyes had been warm and kind even if his face had held an expression somewhere between bemusement and embarrassment. Shino gazed up at Kenshin helplessly. That queer rather frightening light still danced at the back of Kenshin's glassy eyes, Shino found it intimidating. The breeze pushed their clothes around flapping Kenshin's haori and played with their hair sending Shino's unruly fringe into a tangle over his eyes. The red head's feet slithered a little in the snow and his breath caught. Shino reached out and caught hold of his sleeve on reflex.

Kenshin started, his mind reeled and pain scorched through his body. Then it seemed out of no where this small hand reached out to steady him. He stared at Shino and the ice inside cracked a little. He resisted the sudden urge to fling Shino aside, and grappled with his own revulsion. Revulsion directed at himself. For a moment, the frantic light in his eyes flared up to full brightness again. His heart thudded. _'Why oh why did people come near him? He wasn't safe he couldn't be trusted. He'd, he'd….'_ The image of Tomoe's body ice cold and white half wrapt in the shroud came back to him. His eyes burnt, his stomach came back to full churning life. He slithered still more in the snow. Shino's grip tightened and suddenly the wild frantic throb inside died down. Shino didn't let go. Kenshin stood still his breath beating against his ribs, head reeling. The pain still scorched his insides but a little calm filled him, the wild light left his eyes. He looked down at Shino and tried to smile to show his gratitude. Only it looked more like a grimace but the boy with his shaggy hair over his eyes just smiled in return.

The snow surrounding the house was thick and unmarked. The garden Tomoe had cried over lay frozen under a tiered staircase of snow. Even the dark shape of the house as it sat tucked against the rising ground was shrouded in white. Kenshin stood silently staring. At the tree, that over hung their fields its branches coated in snow, and at the house, its roof completely enshrouded in white. The whole place might have been sleeping, everything was so quiet and still. Shino released Kenshin's sleeve and hurried forward to open the door. The door ground, its runners full of snow and grit. Kenshin stepped forward, his mind elsewhere, the breeze flapping his haori and tangling his hair. He gripped the shoji in his hands, thrusting it back with the full force of his arms. It sprang about in the snowy runner, squeaking and grinding as it did. The two men stepped cautiously inside laying Tomoe down gently on a futon. The wind blew a little more forcefully and the two men gazed out at the sky. By silent mutual agreement they hurried, rolling up the make shift stretcher like a bolt of cloth. The wind outside whispered blowing little piles of snow in through the open door way. Yuri paused looking about her as she placed the pot down on the edge of the fireplace. The quiet silence of the house and the darkness swept in round her. Her men folk watched her, waiting. She bowed to Kenshin and followed them out into the snow. Looking back she saw him through the still open door standing very still staring into space. She wondered sadly if they were doing the right thing.

The house was a cold place. The door still hung ajar from his hasty departure. A patch of snow had collected in the step where they left their shoes. He stood on the broad wooden boards feeling a sort of creeping panic rising in his mind as the silence settled ever more deeply around him. It had been along time since he'd been truly alone. Not since his mother had at last given up her struggle with cholera all those years ago. He'd been a lone then too with just her still, heavy body for company in the gathering silence. This was the same only worse. His mind coiled around itself, twisting ever more tightly in a dance between shock, grief and guilt. The silence only amplified it. He'd wanted to come back here. To be alone with his wife and his grief but now he suddenly felt cold and vulnerable. He wasn't solitary by nature. He had always been quiet, but never solitary. His mind churned and the room grew cooler. The breeze slipped through the open door and around the house stirring the dead ashes in the fire place and making his clothes ripple.

He could still feel the pressure of his katana in his hands as it sliced into her body. The deep scream that had died in his throat when he'd seen the look in her deep dark eyes still rattled around somewhere deep inside him. Those eyes had been so calm, so clear so completely without regret. He didn't understand. Here in this house everywhere he looked there were signs of her presence. The vase of wilted flowers, the writing brush and its little sealed bottle of ink. The soft almost phantom like scent of white plum and the after echo of his voice promising to protect her seemed to hang in the air, mocking him.

He shook himself abruptly brushing the tears that had slipped down his face away. It was no use standing here listening to the ghosts of the past. He drew his daisho from his obi and placed them in the corner. His hand lingered over the wakizashi trembling faintly. He'd killed everyone on the mountain hadn't he? So why did he feel this deep disquiet. The breeze rippled past the shoji making it dance in its runner. Kenshin snatched the wakizashi and swung round, his nerves taunt, his heart throbbing in his throat. The silence of the room settled around him. Nothing moved, just his eyes and his heart as it fluttered against his chest. A minute passed, slowly then another, he swallowed thickly and put the wakizashi still in its saya back in his obi.

The fire flicked sending strange shadows racing across the walls. The warm water trickled down between his fingers staining them red as he passed the wet cloth back and forth over Tomoe's marred body. His hands shook and tears unbidden and uncheckable trickled across his cheeks. The wound on his face stung madly, but for once, it didn't bleed. The water in the bucket, slowly took on the hue of a ruby, deep red and glistening.

(2006)


	6. Snow dust

Author's notes: Well I'll admit this took me a _lot_ longer than I intended. This chapter has been an absolute monster to write, at first I couldn't get the mood right then I had all sorts of other nagging problems with it too. Kenshin's far more trouble when he's awake. I'm still not sure I'm completely satisfied with it.

This whole fic has been a bit of an experiment on my part from day one. I've tried really hard to connect the mood of each chapter with Kenshin's state of mind, and I'm not really sure that I succeeded. It does sound a bit bitty in places. Still, I think it's turned out fairly well for all that. I think there's possibly one more chapter and an epilogue left to go. The next chapter is already in the works so hopefully it won't take anything like as long as this one. I'd really love to hear what you think of all this so please take the time to read and review.

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He'd never known that loneliness was silent. Nor that the sound of his own breathing could be so loud. A soft gust of cold air dragged a lock of Kenshin's hair against the back his hand. His calloused palm tightened around the smooth, comforting surface of his wakizashi's saya, as the weapon reclined in its usual resting place against his collarbone. Kenshin crouched in a corner, his head lolling against one of the huge wooden posts that held up the roof. The floorboards were cold and hard. He hadn't slept very well and when he did, his dreams were a strange lucid mix of the distant past and the present. Exhausted and anxious as he was, they left him feeling deeply uneasy, but it was the uncanny silence that bothered him the most.

He tilted his head down and gazed at the still form on the futon. The darkness hid the distortion of her face but Kenshin could still make out the familiar contours of her body. The cold air whispered about him chilling him to the edge of immobility. He propped his cheek against his arm and pulled himself into a weary knot. His cheeks were prickly with several days' growth, the reddish stubble scratched against his cold skin. The house was very quiet. In the stillness, every sound seemed amplified a thousand times. Branches tapped and scraped against the walls making his skin prickle with ill ease and his fingers tighten around the saya. _Had it ever been this quiet before?_ The silence seemed only to grow deeper just as the snow had.

Thin drafts of icy air slipped in from unexpected places and trickled over his bare skin. They sent the cold grey ashes from the spent fire into little swirling dances. It was dark but his eyes were accustomed to the black and silver monochrome of the night time world. He'd watched the fire burn down until it was nothing more than a pile of ash and slowly darkening embers. He had forgotten what it felt like to be the prey not the predator. The memory of how it felt to be vulnerable and insecure had become nothing more than a faint wisp of smoke on a distant horizon. Until now.

Some deep, primitive, inner instinct had driven him to endure the cold and let the fire die. A fire would only announce his presence to anyone who might be near by. Somehow he knew that the ambush and Tomoe's death was only the beginning of something else. Something far more threatening. His ears strained through the silence for each small noise. His feet dug against the bare floorboards at the faintest sound. He couldn't help it. His nerves were taut as bowstrings and now that his head was clear he found that several things didn't quite add up. There was certainly still someone out there who had been in on the whole thing. Although he knew logically that Iizuka would already be some distance away, there was the undeniable fact that he had a limited ability to protect himself at this point. Not that he was sure he wanted too. Kenshin could hear Hiko lecturing him in his own head and he was sure that anything that passed his lips would only taste of blood and regret.

Tomoe lay at his feet, a darker patch in the darkness, forever silent and still. The only movement came from the thin drafts of air as they fingered her hair and the edge of the blankets. He found it hard to look at her without feeling a rush of disgust and maudlin self-pity surging up his throat. The disgust was bad enough but he had a natural aversion to self-pity and his own only increased his disgust with himself. He shifted his weight and lent his head against the post, as his fingers tightened around the wakizashi drawing it close. The smooth familiarity of the cool, hard saya brought him some semblance of security. He didn't like what he'd become, but his instinct for self-preservation was too ingrained. He couldn't help it, he didn't want to live but he didn't want to die either. The hot blood in his veins continued to circulate with each strong steady heart beat.

His eyelids sagged, and his head flopped against the wall. The moon made the floor boards shimmer like an ocean of silk. It drifted over Tomoe softening the distortion of her beautiful face in a slow tide of light and shadow. Finally, unwillingly, Kenshin slept.

Pale, white plum blossom filled the air around him, swirling in little eddies like snow before the wind. Slowly it fell, then melted away, and he found himself kneeling in the snow once again. In cold, deep, snow beneath a canopy of bare trees. He should have been cold, but somehow he wasn't. Blood trickled down his face staining his clothes with red, yet he felt nothing. All around him, there was red. The snow was red, his hands were red, his clothes, and his face. All red, as red as his own hair. He stared up at the gunmetal grey clouds, heavy with unfallen snow. The clouds closed in pressing down on the trees above, until their oppressive burden out weighed the weight in his lap.

The weight in his lap….Tomoe lay in his lap, her kimono soaked in blood. Blood and white plum filled his nostrils and the stillness settled around him. The whole world seemed encompassed by a heavy blanketing silence. He stroked Tomoe's face and trembled. He was, it seemed, inevitably and endlessly imprisoned in this moment. This single moment of regret and agony, of a pain more piercing than anything he'd ever known. He couldn't escape. Nothing moved. His breath steamed on the air. Above the silence all he could hear was his heart beating in his ears.

So quiet. The sound of boots crunching through snow shattered the silence like ice cracking across a lake. He jerked his head up and the world swung round wildly. A hysterical blur of red and white.

"_Didn't I tell you that the Hiten Misturugi would make you a mass murderer!" _

He snapped into wakefulness his heart thudding, eyes wide. Hiko's voice pounding in his skull. Not for the first time he felt physically ill. He could hear himself, in his mind, his voice filled with certainty. _'The happiness you lost once, in all this violence. I'll protect it this time for you.'_ How foolish he'd beenand yet worse still was that other time, at the inn in Kyoto. He could still hear himself, his voice taunt with desperation. _'I thought about my answer. Whether I would have killed you, if you had had a sword. The answer is no. I wouldn't kill you. Whatever happened, I could never do that to you. Not to you . . . Never.'_ He'd believed it too but the evidence of his own poor judgement lay silent and still at his feet. He stared at the floor his finger tracing the raw wound on his face. Ironically, it was starting to heal.

He stood up stiffly, an old man suddenly where a boy should have been, and peered out the window at the garden lying dormant beneath its silver white blanket. The fragments of a thousand conversations spilled out of his memory. Their world had been one of silence. They were both quiet, speaking only at need. Yet they had communicated with a thousand silent gestures. The tilt of a head, the flick of an eyebrow, or a steady questioning gaze, it was enough. Those eyes filled with so many things, with dark lights in their depths that he could not read. Warmth, calm, helplessness and something else. Rather like a sort of agonised confusion, that slipped away eel quick whenever he unexpectedly met her eyes. There was a memory of her on her knees in the snow. She'd fallen as they hurried her geta catching on a stone hidden by the snow, gazing up at him with a sort of helpless surprise and startlement, that wouldn't leave him. In that moment he'd loved her almost compulsively. He couldn't believe that it was he, himself, Himura Kenshin who'd extinguished forever the light in those deep, dark eyes. He couldn't get past it and it made him feel ill.

She had had the most profound effect on his life. That beautiful, remote girl who had stood in the alleyway, her kimono splattered with blood, staring at him. _'In plays they always say, "A rain of blood fell" . . . But you really made it rain blood.'_ Things had begun to change even then, because all he had been able to do was stare at her, flat footed and indecisive. It had never happened before. The sword had dropped from his nerveless fingers and he'd gazed into her eyes, bloodied, panting and shocked to the core. He'd been rushing forward then with each black envelope and each passing day towards the final fracturing of his own mind. He had drowned his inner calm with a ceaseless rain of blood, until it dripped down his sword and soaked into his skin leaving him increasingly restless and aggressive. Somehow, Tomoe alone had pierced his growing agitation.

He closed his eyes. The breeze from the window fluttered past his face. Tomoe had always been very kind. He knew, he was intimidating yet she had only ever once seemed afraid of him and that had only been a flash of terror over the glint of a blade held against her throat. She was undoubtedly brusque, but her words had penetrated the haze in his mind as nothing else could. Tomoe, he knew had had steel in her spine. Though she was beautiful and delicate, she was strong. Strong in a way he had often felt he wasn't. At first she had irritated him, frustrated him and left him feeling decidedly unbalanced. Her words had shaken him, and made him question everything he did. How he'd hated it. He'd tried to push her away fending her off with his own brand of abrupt, rude arrogance. It hadn't worked she would only look at him, her eyes very dark completely unfazed by his behaviour. Behaviour that had sent most people scuttling away. Slowly strangely, amidst all that killing he had found himself listening for her. Looking for her out of the corner of his eyes while he pretended not to. While the world outside had grown more and more unstable and violent the world within his own mind had slowly grown calmer. He sighed. All around him the darkness and silence settled all the more deeply. The moon started to sink behind the mountains, leaving everything in darkness. This hour of darkness between the light of day and night had always seemed to last an age in Kyoto. But time moved differently here. Indeed time had moved differently since that day.

On a small curving bridge with Kyoto smouldering around them time had changed. From the moment, he had looked at her and found that he didn't want her to leave. His world had changed.

He'd stood there with his hand held out to her. His clumsy proposal hanging in the air between them, while her eyes had gazed up at him in complete surprise. _'I don't know how long it will last, but . . . It doesn't have to be for show. Together . . . Till death do us part.'_ He could still feel the unexpectedly rapid thud of his heart as she'd stood there looking at him in complete surprise. Time had stood still then as the ash laden air drifted around them. On that small arched bridge surrounded by the smouldering remanets of a great city the tension seemed unbearable. Never had any single word mattered more. When she'd quietly accepted, time had restarted but it had changed. It no longer travelled in jerks and starts broken up by black envelopes and bloodshed, but flowed seamlessly one day to the next in an endless stream. Until he lost count of the days. Perhaps he thought that's what happiness was.

Tomoe had given it to him. To he whose life mattered not at all, she had been given this thing freely. Deep down he knew he did not deserve it but he was grateful all the same. He owed her something. He could not protect her happiness as he had promised for he had stolen her life with his own hands. Nor could he die and go back on the promise that he had given to Katsura. He exhaled and opened his eyes to stare out at the black world beyond the window. A draft of wind blew his hair against the wound on his cheek.

Kenshin remembered the way Tomoe's fingers had slipped so lightly, so cautiously over it. It had been dark then too, her hands and eyes had been both curious and sad at the same time. Their touch had drawn some strange emotion out of him, an odd blend of responsibility, protectiveness and earnestness. _'One man can't hope to change an era alone. The only thing he can do is protect the happiness of the people he sees before him, one by one. But before that--my days as a Hitokiri will go on. . . . I want to find a way to protect others without taking life. While finding a way to atone for the crime of stealing other's happiness with my own hands.' _He closed his fingers into a tight fist and looked back across the room, perhaps he could not keep his word exactly how he would have liked but…. In the end when finally, the new age came he could at least keep that part of his promise to her. It was the only thing he could offer her and some how he would find a way to uphold it.

(2006)


	7. Smoke and snow

Author's notes: I hadn't really intended this to take so long but between starting this chapter and finishing it, the eldest of my two collies became quite worryingly unwell. She's 15 so when she does show signs of ill health it's a concern and to be honest all thoughts of RK and fan fics fled from my mind. The old lady is back to usual self now thank goodness.

Anyway, what with all that, I've done my best on this chapter but I think it might well be a little choppy in places, as I had a lot of trouble concentrating at times. Also I know someone will mention the scene in the ova of Kenshin cremating Tomoe (presumably anyway) by burning down the house they were living in. That scene doesn't fit well with me, somehow, as much as I love the ovas I just find the idea of Kenshin being that disrespectful hard to swallow. It's not as if he owned the house and I don't think Katsura did either and I just can't see Kenshin torching such a valuable thing when it doesn't even belong to him. Still that's just my view hence the difference in this fic. Also although this is the final chapter I'm planning an epilogue as well, but it might not be what you'd expect. Thank you all so much for your encouragement and input, I certainly hope this chapter doesn't disappoint anyone. Please do read and review.

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The scent of stale incense, cold ashes and death, lingered on the cold air all but over powering the distant fragrance of white plum. Sunlight slipped through the thin gaps in the walls and darted across the floor but did little to warm the room. The weather was changing, but it was still cold enough for your breath to hang in the air. Kenshin shifted his cold, stiff body and pushed his tangled red hair out his eyes. He noted the new warmth in the sunlight as it shone across his toes. In a tree, somewhere close by, a bird sung out of season. It's voice rising hesitantly but clearly into the still morning. Kenshin raised his head from the hilt of his short sword and sighed. He looked across at Tomoe over the darned sleeve of his haori. As the weather grew warmer, her body would start to bloat and decompose. A quiet, rather strange resolve settled in his mind, he knew, however unwillingly, that the time had come for them to be parted. Tomoe would have to be buried or cremated before the weather grew any warmer.

Kenshin scraped the snow off of the ground with a wooden hoe, a scowl carved into his face. Beneath the snow, the ground was hard and half frozen. His breath hung on the air like thin clouds of pale smoke. His wounds ached and after a short burst, his breathing quickened. Unbidden tears slipped past his lashes and trickled down his cheeks only to dissolve on the cold ground below. The cool breeze rippled around clothes, and slowly, a long shallow trench appeared beneath his hoe.

His clothes grew damp both inside and out. Sweat ran down his back plastering his shirt to his body and making the deep slashes on his back burn. He didn't mind, he didn't care, it seemed fitting some how that he should suffer this way so Tomoe could rest. Image after image of his sword sweeping through men's' bodies flickered through Kenshin's mind. The blood pooling across the cobbled streets and filling the gutters. Of eyes filled with pain, horror, and surprise. Kenshin ground his eyes shut and shoved the memories aside. Beneath him, the half frozen ground where only a few short weeks ago cabbages had grown seemed barely touched. His face set itself in grim determined lines, the timber hoe clawed at the ground driven forward by the desperate stubbornness of Kenshin's thin arms. Hard and cold, it stubbornly resisted his determined assault. He tried not to think, tried to fall into the steady repetitive rhythm that so reminded him of his kata. If he didn't think, he would be alright. Even so, tears kept finding their way past his eyelashes and down his face. They surprised him seeming to appear suddenly from no where without him noticing. He rubbed at his eyes irritably with the sleeve of his haori. Slowly, steadily, a trench appeared in the deep brown earth. A slightly wonky imperfect shallow ditch with rough sides surrounded by an ocean of snow.

He threw down a pile of firewood. Neat, carefully quartered logs he'd chopped with his own hands. He stared at it piled up haphazardly in the ditch, wood that had been intended for their fire not a funeral pyre. He smoothed it out lining the trench with it and topped it with the charcoal from the fire pit. He gazed down at his hands feeling strangely calm and emotionless. For once, they weren't stained red. Now they were black and grey from the ash. He stared at them, his mind rolling the thought over and back and forth like a kitten with a ball. He shook his head abruptly, making his hair flash across his eyes, telling himself that it didn't make any difference in the end. He dusted his hands off against his hakama, leaving deep sooty smears in their wake. He straightened his back and gazed up at the mountains that towered around him. White peaked, blue monoliths which encircled him like some giant monarch's crown. He'd seen Tomoe do this often, just standing out in the field her eyes gazing up at the ring of mountains above. He wondered what she'd though of. Had she felt as small and insignificant as he did? The breeze blew his hair into his eyes. He sighed and turned away.

It was only when he was standing above her that he realised that there was nothing to wrap her in. No shroud, no coffin of any sort, not even a pristine roll of tatami. Only the sheet from her futon and a roll of bamboo matting he'd bought her in Otsu. She'd never used it, it leant against the wall still rolled up, clean and unused. He felt guilty. As he had long ago, when he'd buried the three women from the slave trader's caravan. They had been so kind to him, those women. He'd cried when he hadn't been able to find nice stones for their graves and now he felt the same rush of frustration and guilt. They had deserved better, just as Tomoe did. Like Tomoe, all three had lost their lives trying to preserve his. He crouched down beside Tomoe screwing up his face in an effort to restrain yet another flood of tears. The women in his life, the women he should have protected, always seemed to die trying to protect _him_.

In the end, he wrapped her up in the sheet, putting her hands on her chest and her hair over her shoulder. He smoothed her hair with regretful, trembling fingers, noting the way the light shone on it. He couldn't look at her face, bruised and distorted as it was. He wrapped her tightly, folding the fabric here and there. Pulling it firm with clumsy fingers, while cold drafts of air blew his hair into his face. He tried to do her justice with what little that he had. But the breeze seemed to conspire against him, toying with his long hair and thrusting his thin wispy fringe into his smarting eyes.

His feet sank into the snow, slowly beneath the soft, yellow light it was melting. He carried Tomoe awkwardly. She had gone from a soft pliant woman to a stiff unwieldy bundle and even now in death, she was still taller than him. He laid her atop the bamboo matting then on the pile of wood and charcoal. It was unceremonious, almost undignified but it was the best he could do and all the while the little greenish bird sang and sang.

The charcoal embers glowed and the dry bamboo matting with it's sprinkling of sake kindled, sending thin tendrils of pale grey smoke spiralling into the air. Tomoe's body wrapped in its sheet and woven bamboo matting slowly disappeared behind a wall of smoke. Kenshin stood, he watched the flames flickering around the dry timber creeping ever closer to the roll of bamboo matting. A dry lump forced its way up his throat. Thin shafts of sunlight forced their way through the heavy grey clouds. All around him there was only the soft sounds of Japan sleeping beneath her mantle of snow. The soft rustle of bamboo, the groaning of tree branches, the steady singing of the little warbler in his tree. He watched the slender spirals of smoke gliding up to the grey clouds, and understood why Katsura had picked this spot for them.

There was no one here. Down in the valley a good few hours walk away was Otsu the bubbling hub of Lake Biwa. Here though, all was silent. There were only a few small farms, the tiny village below, the mountains, the trees, the birds and an all encompassing silence. Here, where few people came they should have been safe. Just another young couple driven from Kyoto by the war to the relative safety of the country side. They should have been safe, but somehow it hadn't worked out that way. With a weary sigh, he sat down in the snow and stared into the flames. Flames that slowly, moment by moment, were devouring Tomoe's earthy existence.

Katsura looked down at the worn folded paper. A week ago, a trembling and exhausted messenger had thrust it into his hands. Its contents had shaken him no end, but he was never one to sit back and let things go. Even now, Iizuka was paying the price for his treachery. All the same, he was worried about Himura. The tough brown pony beneath him was tried. He had driven it hard for two days with only short breaks over night until its thick winter coat was soaked with sweat. None the less, it continued forward at a brisk walk its ears flicking back between himself and the road ahead. Katsura couldn't help but feel worried. Kenshin with his swordsmanship and his inherent honesty was one of the Ishin Shishi's most precious men. He felt guilty too. Shinsaku had warned him that he would be sacrificing Kenshin's soul for the sake of his own desires, he hadn't listened. It had seemed a small price to pay.

He had a certain affection for the youngest and most dangerous of his men. When Kenshin spoke which was rarely, there was never any doubt about the honestly of his words. Never any need to pick through bravado or ego to find the truth. Kenshin had always kept to his duty and his word. It was himself who had failed, leaving the boy in the hands of a traitor. Anxious and worried he clapped his heels to the pony's sweaty sides and cantered on.

It seemed hours before Otsu came into view. A large bustling harbour town thrown against a backdrop of deep, blue water and snow capped mountains. Beautiful, beautiful Otsu he'd never been so relieved to see the place in his life. The breeze brushed at his clothes and rippled through the pony's coat. The sweet smell of clear fresh water, of bamboo and snow filled his lungs. He'd leave the pony here and continue on foot, to do other wise would only draw people's attention. He stroked the pony's neck in gratitude. He only hoped Himura was still alive.

Kenshin stared moodily down into his reflection on the surface of the sake. He didn't like the silence, and even the smooth repetitive action of his kata had done little to quieten his nerves and restlessness. A gentle breeze broke his reflection into a sluggish ripple. He didn't even want the sake really. He tilted the pale liquid back and forth in the shallow cup. His mind quietly going back and forth over the morning in the forest. No matter how he looked at it, no matter what he thought it made very little sense. _'It's all right. So please, don't cry…'_ He frowned down at his reflection. Tomoe's final, soft pained words made even less sense. It wasn't right at all. If someone had had to die, Kenshin was sure that it should have been him. After all, he was the hitokiri. He closed his eyes, tired, sore and puzzled. He put the sake down, leaving it in the darkness to gather a thin flim of dust.

The clay urn stared back at him from across the room. He'd gotten up automatically, pulled his hair up into the ponytail in which he'd habitually worn it since he was a child. Every action had come from a well conditioned habit which was just as well for his mind was else where. He thought and puzzled over the whole incident with an almost religious ardour. It still didn't make any sense. Why had Tomoe even gone up the mountain and into that forest? _Why?_ It nagged at him. He dropped the remaining fire wood in the fire pit and crouched down to light it. The flint struck in time to his unanswerable question, _why, why, why_? The kindling took crackling and sparking beneath his hands. He stared at it, his violet blue eyes troubled.

His straw sandals whispered against the road as Katsura strode along. His deep brown coat and straw hat were intended to shield him from inquisitive eyes, but he could not hide his walk. The smooth, swift, sure stride of a man on a mission. Nor could he hide his carriage. To those who knew it was easy to see past the clothes and see the samurai beneath. The breeze whisked his coat about and made him grasp the edge of his hat in self defence. He paused half way up the mountain side to gaze back at Lake Biwa with Otsu nestled at it lower end.

The wind had picked up, after a few days of snow melting sun. It fanned the flames in the fire pit making them flicker and flare before his eyes. The deep blue of his eyes reflected the red and yellow flames as Kenshin sat hunched over, his eyes fixed blankly at the dancing flames before him. Even now, that single stubborn endless question clawed away at his mind. The breeze slipped past him fluttering his fringe around his face and making the fire spark and flare. He didn't notice. He frowned, baffled and unhappy into the bright light. The sound of rustling paper came to him from somewhere far away. He blinked and gazed around as another wayward draft of air fingered the pages of Tomoe's diary. He stared at it, breathing slowly. He got up stiffly and put his hand out towards it half expecting Tomoe to appear out of no where and snatch it away. His fingers trembled faintly as he lifted it. They tightened around the card cover. The answer was in there somewhere. It just had to be.

He drew the precious thing close to his body and fingered the pages. Beyond the neat plain cover was the answer, somewhere on the pages inside covered by Tomoe's neat well ordered hand. His eyes hurried over the pages devouring the words almost frantically. Until he came to the name…. Kyosato. It leapt out at him, at once familiar, yet unplaceable. _Kyosato_. An image came up into his mind, a young man lunging at him desperately. Of the same man lying in an ever widening pool of blood, gasping out a name that was all too familiar. Kenshin felt his world tremble. The precious diary slipped from his fingers and fluttered weightlessly to the floor.

"Your misfortune in killing her fiancé. Her misfortune in falling in love with you. It was just two pieces of very bad luck. It's not your fault. I heard all about it. I've already sent someone for the traitor."

The voice made Kenshin jerk up his head. Sending his pony tail flicking about his face. He stared into Katsura's eyes, white and shaking from shock. Later Katsura would see that face, white, as it was, the pupils in the very blue eyes dilated, and filled with shock and pain, in his sleep. Forever after when ever he had to place someone else on the line for Japan, he would dream of Kenshin's eyes.

Kenshin walked down the road, his feet as always nearly silent his ponytail swinging behind him. Below him gleaming like a jewel lay Lake Biwa, its surface reflecting the mountains that encircled it like a deep blue mirror. He paused only once to look back at the house before the curve in the road hid it from view. It sat small, brown and inconspicuous in the lee of the mountain, forests and fields surrounding it on all sides. For a moment he though he could see Tomoe gazing out after him as he stood in the road. He blinked and the image was gone. He turned, his red hair streaming out behind him and strode towards Otsu his swords brushing against his hakama with each step.

(2006)


End file.
